Moonflower Madness

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘What assumption?’

  ‘That Gianetta was mercenarily trying to compromise me into marriage.’ He walked across to the fire, warming his uninjured hand at it. ‘I knew of course, right from the evening when you so precipitately walked in on our … er … conversation,’ he threw Zachary a sheepish grin, ‘that she was eager to marry me, but I don’t have such a high opinion of myself that I found it perfectly natural that she should do so. As you so succinctly pointed out, she barely knew me; and her following me from Chung King and declaring herself in the way she did, was all rather suspect.’

  Zachary stared at him, the bands around his chest tightening with every second that passed.

  ‘Just how did she declare herself?’ he asked, his voice taut. ‘You never did tell me what led up to the little love scene I disturbed.’

  Charles cleared his throat. He wasn’t a liar by nature, but he had been mortified at Zac thinking badly of him and now that Serena had told him the truth of Gianetta’s feelings for him he saw no reason why he shouldn’t elaborate the scene a little and reinstate himself in Zac’s eyes.

  ‘She told me she had fallen in love with me at first sight,’ he said, trying to sound modest about it. It was, after all, what Serena had told him had happened and he didn’t see what harm could come from putting words Gianetta had been too shy to speak, into her mouth.

  He thought back to his last conversation with her. He had told her that he was engaged to be married but that, for her sake, he would break his engagement off. She had been horrified at the suggestion and had told him that she didn’t love him, that her only reason for following him from Chung King had been to find blue Moonflowers.

  Serena had stared at him as if he had been a madman when he had recounted the conversation to her. With her bags all packed and ready to leave for England as Henry Plaxtol’s bride, she had said quite categorically that Gianetta had behaved as she had because she believed that he, Charles, had fallen in love with her.

  ‘Why else would she have ridden after you?’ she had asked, wide-eyed. ‘And now, because she doesn’t want to cause your fiancé unhappiness and because she doesn’t want to face Papa’s wrath, she is obliged to remain with Mr Cartwright’s expedition. Someone must rescue her from such an impossible situation, and the only person who can do so is yourself.’

  ‘That was the real reason she followed us from Chung King,’ Charles continued, blithely unaware of the effect his words were having. ‘You were quite right in assuming that she wanted to marry me, but your assumptions about her reasons were wrong. They weren’t mercenary. Serena was absolutely adamant that there isn’t a less mercenary or calculating girl alive than Gianetta. And I know now that I will never be happy with anyone else. I have written to my fiancé, asking her to free me. And I am going to ask Gianetta to marry me.’

  ‘Are you, by God!’

  Pain sliced through him. All along, deep down, he had known he had been living in a dream-world. Now he had no more doubts. She had married him because she had wanted a husband; any husband. Her first choice had been Charles, rich and handsome and titled. And when he had warned Charles off, and when Charles had returned injured to Chung King, she had transferred her attentions to him.

  Again he wondered about the depth of collusion between herself and Sir Arthur. Whatever it had been, he had most certainly been gulled. And if Charles had not returned at such a crucial moment, he might have lived the rest of his life with her and never have known.

  His fists clenched, the knuckles white. God help him, but he wished he had done so. He wouldn’t now be suffering this terrible fury and desolation. He wouldn’t now be facing a future without her.

  ‘Where is Gianetta?’ Charles asked, looking around curiously.

  ‘She’s swimming.’

  As Charles looked in the direction of the silky-black Kialing, he kicked the two bedding rolls into a heap. The less Charles knew about his true intentions where Gianetta was concerned, the better it would be.

  ‘Your horse needs rubbing down,’ he said tersely. ‘There are no Chinese so you’ll have to see to it yourself. I’ll go and tell Gianetta that you’re here.’

  Before Charles could make any protestation he turned on his heel, striding away from the fire and into the darkness. It was an action he found profoundly symbolic. The passion and joy that had so suddenly entered his life had been extinguished in two carelessly spoken sentences. There was no way, now, that his marriage would be consummated. On the grounds that it had not been so, Gianetta would eventually be free to accept Charles’s proposal of marriage. Marriage to Charles was, after all, what she had wanted all along. He had only been consolation prize.

  Grimly he entered the outcrop of trees reaching down to the bank. He was going to need superhuman control if he was to live through the next few hours without revealing the tortured depth of his hurt, but he would not do so, he would be damned to hell before he would do so.

  Gianetta was unsure how long she had been in the water, swimming a few leisurely strokes and then floating on her back, looking up at the moon and the stars. The Pleiades were heartachingly bright and she was able to locate Aldebaran and Venus. Dimly she became aware of voices and stopped swimming, apprehension flooding through her. Surely the Chinese hadn’t misunderstood Zachary’s instructions and ridden from Peng to join them? And if they had, why was Zachary not sending them speedily back the way they had come?

  As the minutes ticked by and as Zachary failed to make an appearance, her concern grew. Perhaps she hadn’t heard more than one voice. Perhaps she had only heard Zachary calling a still wayward Bucephalus.

  She swam towards the narrow arc of shingle and when she was within her depth began to wade out, her lace-trimmed undergarments clinging to her like a second skin.

  This time it was Zachary who surprised her as she waded for the shore. Though she wasn’t naked, she might as well have been. Beneath her saturated cotton camisole her breasts were full and lush, her nipples dark and prominent.

  She stopped walking, smiling at him, expecting him to join her.

  ‘What took so long?’ she asked lovingly. ‘Did Bucephalus refuse to be hobbled?’

  The husky quality in her voice sent heat coursing along his veins and nerve-endings. Christ, but he wanted her! If Charles hadn’t blundered in on them, if his blithely happy words hadn’t faced him with harsh truth, then they could have been happy together. Despite all her past deceits and even her reason for marrying him, he knew in his blood and in his bones that they would have been blissfully happy together.

  For a minute he was tempted nearly beyond endurance. He could tell Charles that he was not only married to Gianetta but that he intended to stay married to her. He could pretend that his conversation with Charles had never taken place. The blood pounded in his ears. If he did so, his deceit would be on nearly as grand a scale as hers.

  He said tightly, ‘We have a visitor. Charles.’

  The welcoming smile vanished from her face. She stared at him horrified, still knee-deep in the silky-black water. ‘Charles?’

  There was no mistaking the disbelief in her voice. Whatever else she may have planned, she had not planned this particular reunion.

  ‘He’s waiting for us by the camp-fire.’ His voice was so oddly brittle that he barely recognised it as his own.

  She began to walk slowly towards him, ripples eddying around her.

  ‘Then … we’re not going to be alone?’

  ‘No.’ He turned abruptly away from her, knowing that if he did not do so he would be lost.

  ‘Zachary! Wait for me!’

  Her voice sounded utterly stricken, as if she was as devastated by Charles’arrival as he had been.

  He didn’t pause in his swift stride through the trees and onto the grass and the closed Globeflowers. He had made up his mind what he was going to do, and nothing was going to deflect him. A scene now, at night, would be too horrific to bear. He knew that when he had said everything that had to be sa
id, he would need to leave immediately.

  The morning would be soon enough for revelations, his as well as Charles’. And the long, barren, intervening night would just have to be endured.

  As Zachary walked away from her, Gianetta stared after him in incredulity. She could understand his frustration and anger at Charles’s untimely arrival, but she didn’t understand why his entire attitude towards her should have changed so drastically. Surely he realised that she was just as disappointed as he was? Surely he realised that she needed loving commiseration from him, not chilly abruptness?

  She shook the sand from her breeches and tugged them up over her wet underthings, before pulling on her blouse. She was now excessively uncomfortable and excessively cold. Leaving her boots where they were she began to run after him, her teeth chattering.

  By the time she caught up with him they were too near the camp-fire, and Charles, for her to be able to have any private conversation with him.

  ‘Gianetta!’ Charles strode quickly towards her, taking hold of her by the hand, kissing her warmly on the cheek. ‘I don’t suppose you expected to see me again till you were back in London?’

  Considering the friendship that had sprung up between them before he had left her to travel on to Chung King alone, his warm greeting was not overly excessive, but Gianetta couldn’t help but be aware of Zachary’s eyes on them and of his stony silence.

  ‘No,’ she said, disengaging her hand from his.

  At her coolness, he looked pathetically bewildered and she felt immediately ashamed of herself. It wasn’t his fault that he had unknowingly gate-crashed her wedding night. At any other time, and in any other place, she would have been delighted at seeing him.

  She forced a smile. ‘How on earth did you manage to catch up with us, riding with one arm in a splint?’

  A boyish grin split his good-natured face. ‘I travelled by boat from Chung King to Peng.’

  ‘Did you call at the mission?’ Zachary asked, standing several yards away from them.

  Charles shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t fancy being preached at. I disembarked at the landing-stage in the town and went straight to the nearest inn. Your men told me you had only left a few hours previously and that I would easily be able to catch up with you.’

  It was obvious that Charles knew nothing of their wedding. Gianetta looked towards the bedding rolls and saw with a spasm of anguish that they been hurriedly kicked together into an insignificant pile.

  She waited for Zachary to tell Charles about their marriage. Charles had obviously rejoined them with the intention of once again being part of their expedition to Kansu. How awkward was it going to be for the three of them travelling together, when two of them were man and wife?

  As Zachary remained silent, she realised that he wasn’t going to embarrass Charles by telling him he had walked in on their wedding night. He was going to wait until the morning before he broke the news of their marriage to him. She understood his reasons; he didn’t want Charles insisting on returning to Peng in the dark, especially when he was so handicapped by his injured arm; neither did he want to cause her the embarrassment of having Charles know that they had been on the point of making love.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ Charles was saying, looking towards the camp-fire, surprised at seeing no cooking pots.

  ‘No.’

  Zachary’s voice was so tersely abrupt that Gianetta found it unbelievable that Charles was not taking offence at it. She shivered, the night air striking chillily through her damp clothes and saturated under-garments.

  ‘You need to change into dry clothes,’ Zachary said to her, as tersely as he had spoken to Charles.

  Gianetta looked across at him, trying to catch his eye, hoping to exchange an intimate, complicit smile with him. His eyes studiously avoided hers. Unhappily resigning herself to the fact that Zachary wasn’t going to betray their relationship by so much as the flicker of an eyelid, she turned away and walked over to the rim of the firelight where her carpet-bag lay.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Gianetta tonight,’ she heard Charles say to Zachary.

  She pulled her skirt and a blouse from her carpet-bag.

  ‘Leave it until the morning,’ Zachary replied, his voice still tight-edged. ‘There’ll be lots of talking then.’

  Bleakly she set off once again for the discreet cover of the trees, vividly aware of how joyously she had run towards them only a short half hour ago.

  As she stripped off her wet clothing and clambered gratefully into her serviceably thick skirt and modestly highnecked blouse, she began to chide herself for what she was now beginning to see as her excessive reaction to Charles’arrival. Zachary could have behaved in no other way, not if he was to ensure that Charles did not feel agonizingly uncomfortable. It was good manners which were dictating his behaviour, and her own manners, when Charles had greeted her so warmly, had left a lot to be desired.

  She fastened her blouse buttons, ashamed of the childish resentment she had felt towards him. She and Zachary were going to spend the rest of their lives together. One lost night was of no importance. Far more important was loving behaviour towards a friend.

  Much comforted, she walked back towards the fire. Cooking pots had been unpacked and two pans of water were beginning to boil, one for rice and one for the hot drink she was now very much looking forward to.

  ‘Serena sends you all her love,’ Charles said, sitting cross-legged, Indian-fashion, by the fire. ‘It’s been arranged that she and Henry Plaxtol are to marry in Shanghai before travelling on to England. That way, Sir Arthur and her mother will be able to be present at the wedding without too much inconvenience.’

  ‘When is it to be?’ Gianetta asked, wishing that, without separating from Zachary, she could be at the wedding and be Serena’s matron-of-honour.

  ‘Pretty soon. When I left Chung King, Serena and her mother were ready to leave and were only waiting for Sir Arthur to return from a visit to some Viceroy or other, before doing so.’

  Gianetta found it interesting that no-one had told Charles of the real reason for her uncle’s absence from Chung King. Her aunt, of course, would not have told him, but she was certain that Serena would have done so had she known. The corner of her mouth crooked into an amused smile. Presumably her uncle had kept his intentions to himself so as not to look foolish if unsuccessful.

  Her smile faded as another thought struck her. ‘I hope Serena didn’t suffer on my account when it was discovered I had gone,’ she added anxiously. ‘My uncle and aunt didn’t think she had aided and abetted me, did they?’

  Charles looked a little nonplussed. ‘I don’t think they did. To tell the truth, Gianetta, I spent very little time with your family. I simply got my arm patched up, and though I talked to Serena, we didn’t discuss what your uncle’s and aunt’s reactions had been to your leaving. She simply told me your reasons for doing so and I immediately left by boat for Peng.’

  She hugged her skirted knees, staring into the fire, not seeing the loving, meaningful look he gave her. If her uncle and aunt had permitted Serena to meet with Charles and to talk to him alone, then they quite obviously did not believe she had known of the escapade in advance and had failed to tell them of it.

  Her bare feet were as near to the heat of the fire as she could bear them to be and she wriggled her toes in delicious comfort, relieved that Serena had not been accused of colluding with her.

  Zachary had melted a chocolate bar into the pan of boiling water, and he now poured the contents into three tin mugs.

  As he wordlessly handed her one she didn’t again try and meet his eyes. She knew, now, the way he wanted her to behave, at least for that evening, and she had no intention of letting him down.

  ‘The news in Chung King is that the Americans are about to intervene in Manchuria and pull the Russians’chestnuts out of the fire for them,’ Charles said, equally constrained.

  Zachary’s refusal to allow him to speak privately to Gianetta that evening was a dam
ned nuisance. For an impatient moment he was tempted to do so irrespective of Zachary’s wishes. He glanced across at his friend, and as he saw the tension in his powerful arm and shoulder muscles, he quickly changed his mind. For some strange reason, Zac’s temper was being held on a very short leash, and he had no intention of provoking it unnecessarily.

  ‘Good,’ Zachary said, staring into the leaping flames. ‘The sooner the Japanese and Russians finish fighting on Chinese soil, the better.’

  No-one made any further comment. Gianetta’s thoughts were a million miles away from Manchuria. Charles was not overly interested in the subject and had only mentioned it because, until he had spoken to Gianetta, there was nothing he really wished to talk about.

  It was Zachary who brought the uncomfortable silence to an end.

  ‘I think we should be turning in,’ he said, rising to his feet.

  As he walked across to the bedding rolls, disengaging hers from his, Gianetta felt a pang of almost unbearable sadness. Why, oh why, had Charles decided to rejoin them? The last few hours had been so perfect and now, instead of sleeping in each other’s arms, she and Zachary would be sleeping a very proper and very prim distance apart.

  ‘Goodnight, Gianetta,’ Charles said, rising to his feet as she rose to hers. ‘I’d like to talk to you in the morning. Perhaps we could take a walk by the river before breakfast?’

  His voice was oddly thick. Gianetta wondered if he had laced his hot chocolate with a dash of brandy, or if his arm was perhaps paining him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said with tired politeness. ‘That would be nice, Charles.’

  Zachary had already removed his bedding-roll to the far side of the fire, and she knew that he was not going to wish her a loving goodnight.

  Seeking comfort from the thought that not doing so was costing him just as much pain as she herself was feeling, she wrapped her skirt around her legs and, not bothering to undress in any way, slid into her bedding-roll.

  Neither Zachary or Charles spoke again, save to wish each other goodnight. The fire crackled, sending an occasional flurry of sparks skywards. Gianetta lay looking up at the stars, wondering if perhaps Charles would decide against accompanying them when he learned of their marriage; wondering if, by tomorrow evening, she and Zachary would again be alone together.